Viewpoints
by GoldenRoya
Summary: A series of one-shots set during 'Amplification;' the team members chime in with their internal struggles as the episode progresses, giving voice to emotions seen only in passing.
1. JJ

_Much as I would love to own Criminal Minds (not _a_ criminal mind, just the TV show...), I, alas, do not. But if y'all do decide to sue me over this, I claim the right to meet Matthew Gray Gubler face to face. We can arrange that, right?_

_Okay, all fandom aside, this next set of one-shots needs a bit of an explanation. I was watching the fourth season episode, 'Amplification,' when it struck me that, while TV and the visual media does a very good job of relating some of the internal struggles of the characters, it lacks the narrative view available to writers and those of us whose primary mode of communication is words. *sneaky grin* Y'all know what happened next, right? Cue the Attack of the Muse, who kept me up way past my bedtime in order to get these little babies out of my head and onto my computer. And then off to you-all. Aren't you lucky? _

_Anyway, these are a few short one-shots written from the perspectives of the individual characters. I think I dropped in enough hints that you'll know where it's coming from, but if not, I do suggest re-watching the episode. Go out, buy the whole season if you have to. Then let the producers of the show know I encouraged it... I might swing my meet-and-greet yet! _

_For those of you _not _interested in going out to buy the season (and so help grease the wheels for my trip to meet the actors...) 'Amplification' is the one where a crazy lab assistant manufactures weapons-grade anthrax and then releases it in the Quantico region - literally in the team's backyard. They have to find him before he kills everyone, while dealing with the emotional fallout from being attacked on their own home base. _

_If you like it, give my review list some lovin'! If you don't like it, please, tell me why. I'm always looking for ways to improve. Thanks all!  
_

* * *

"_Spence! Did the baby survive?"_

"_Well, yeah, but, I mean, that was a curable strain. This thing's entirely different."_

The conversation echoed through her head. Henry. How had she not thought about Henry? This was a local attack, it should have been setting off alarm bells from the first time she'd learned of it. What sort of mother was she that she could forget about her own son in a time of crisis?

Jennifer Jareau knew the psychological reason - she was so accustomed to cases being far outside of her home, far away, of Henry and Will always being her safe island to return to after the insanity of her work.

Now that barrier had been ripped away and her loved ones were exposed, potential targets of a random killer.

Every instinct within her screamed at her to call home, to warn Will, to get her family as far away as possible. It would cost her her job, but what of it? What would her life be worth without Henry?

But her hand froze as she reached for her cell, an image painting itself across the inside of her eyes of the panic this one phone call might cause. Of Will, holding Henry in his arms, rushing through an airport. An airport that was jammed full of panicking people, turning formerly orderly lines into a mob scene, overwhelming security as they fled the city of death. Her mind's eye pictured Henry knocked from Will's grip, thrown to the floor, crushed underfoot by the crazed crowds. Her line of work meant that she could fill in the picture with the actual, vivid colors and squishing sounds, far more gruesome than those fortunates who had to make do with Hollywood special effects.

Shuddering, she turned from the phone. She had dealt with the backwash of idiots blabbing confidential case details to the media too many times to want to risk doing that to her team, to the people of this region. Panic would kill more people than the anthrax, and she refused to let her son be one of them.

But oh, God please, let Henry be safe!


	2. Hotch

_Jack_.

Aaron Hotchner couldn't stop thinking about his son. Haley doubted he was a fit husband and father, and while he hated to admit it, she was probably right. Married to the job as he was… But he _was_ Jack's father, and he'd never stopped loving Haley, not for one moment. What sort of protector was he if he didn't try to protect the ones he loved the most? It was a minute-by-minute struggle to not pick up the phone and tell them to get the hell out of there.

But he couldn't. He'd taken an oath, to protect every person, every human being, to the best of his not-little ability. That made them all his family. If he used his unique position to protect only the two who meant the most to him, what sort of protector was he?

And more than that. He was the team leader. _He_ had to set the example. _He_ had to draw the line, and stay behind it. _He_ had to be strong, so that everyone else could see what _he _was risking and know that _they_ could bear up just as well as he, and with far less to lose. He frankly envied the rest of his team, whose families were all well out of it. Except for JJ. He could see her fear for her son, and knew better than anyone else in the BAU what it was like to fear for your child. He wanted to comfort her, to tell her the lie that it was all going to be alright.

But he couldn't. One leak. That's all it would take. One leak and all the little Dutch boys in the world couldn't turn back the flood.

So he told her his most straightforward reasoning, asking her if it was right to use their position to protect just one among the many. He could see in her eyes that she thought him cold and heartless, _knew_ that he was cementing his reputation of having ice water for blood, but if he broke down, his team would lose it, and they would lose all hope of protecting everyone, their families included.

If the price for keeping his team focused outside of themselves, moving forward instead of falling apart, was that he had to come across as a bastard, so be it. He was strong enough to bear the load alone. This was one duty he could not and would not share.

He only hoped, when this was over, that he would be able to hold Jack in his arms and never, never let go.


	3. Reid

Spencer cursed his clumsiness. _What sort of an idiot drops a test tube marked _Biohazard? he berated himself. He _knew_, better than anyone, just what was at stake. He'd _talked_ to the victims, he knew what this strain was capable of. And then he'd gone waltzing through the lab of the guy who'd created it as if he hadn't a care in the world. His arrogance had gotten him into this, and no matter how intelligent he was, he was going to die for it.

He was going to die.

_I am going to die._

The look in Morgan's eyes as Reid locked the glass door in his face was going to haunt him for the rest of his life, what little was left of it. _Nothing you can do for me now,_ he thought at the man who'd been like an older brother to him ever since he'd joined the Bureau. _I'm sorry, Derek. _

He felt strangely detached, though. As if it were someone else facing death, and not him. How could he be? This was nothing, just a fine dusting of white powder. No different than the accidental whiff of powdered sugar you get opening up a box of doughnuts. He felt fine. Intellectually, he knew that he was in denial, that he would start down the stages of grief sooner or later.

But the core of Spencer Reid, the part that made him who he was, was determined to not give up just yet. While he was still in denial, still well enough to function, he would bend all his tremendous mental powers to beating the unknown terrorist who threatened his world.

Spencer Reid would not go down without a fight.


	4. Morgan

_Damn it, Reid! _

He was a big brother. It was the role that had defined him from childhood on up. He was the one who protected, the one who shielded, the one who took the blast so that the people he loved the most wouldn't be hurt.

And because of one moment of distraction, he'd let the young man he thought of as closer than family get into a situation from which he wasn't likely to escape. _Reid. _

_Damn it, why'd you have to go in there alone, huh? We're a team, we're supposed to go in _together. _Any danger, you and me. So that I can protect you if I need to._

Not that he could have done much this time. Muscles don't protect against microorganisms.

_I should still be in there with him._

He felt like swearing, like breaking down the door and yanking Reid out of that biological terror trap. It made him sick to think that Reid was in there, taking more spores in with every, single, fear-deep breath. He was already infected, but wasn't there sense in making sure that whatever microbes he had in him stayed lonely and didn't get reinforcements from the outside?

It was only his deep respect for Hotch that kept him from disregarding the rules and breaking in to be with Reid. His little brother shouldn't have to be alone. Not if this was his last few hours left on earth.

Morgan thrust the thought away, but the image of Reid's face and the suppressed terror in his eyes, just inches and yet a whole world away, on the other side of a glass barrier, was going to haunt his nightmares for the rest of his life.


	5. Emily

If there was anything Emily Prentiss was good at, it was compartmentalization. But this case… It was too big for her. It was a tidal wave, washing across her defenses. It was every disaster movie she'd ever seen come to life, and she was stuck playing a role, trying to protect the extras from getting hurt. In the movies, no one cares about the extras, the nameless people who are listed in the credits as 'Man 2,' 'Stewardess,' 'Kid in Street.' They're there to ratchet up the body count and horror factor without getting rid of the people that the audience will sympathize with. Was it so wrong of Emily to want to keep the extras safe?

Of course it was. Good intentions would get more people killed. If regular people knew what she knew, then paranoid delusions would become normal and only the insane ones would feel safe.

So Emily Prentiss lied. To protect people not only from the active threats but from the terrors of their own minds, Emily lied.

It didn't help _her _much, though. Rossi's comment to her in the elevator invaded her dreams that night. How much else was out there? How many other threats had been neutralized that she didn't know about? How many threats out there that hadn't been neutralized yet?

If there was anything Emily Prentiss was good at, it was compartmentalization. But even that skill couldn't stand up to a WMD on her own home turf.


End file.
